Protecting personal data

With expertise in data security and privacy
in data mining, Professor Ljiljana Brankovic has had a long-term interest in the growing
problem of protecting an individual's personal data, the threat to individual
privacy and how that private information is being 'mined' and used for purposes
that the individual may not approve of.

A Vice-Chancellor's Award for Teaching
Excellence and Contribution to Student Learning in 2014 capped off a productive year for
Brankovic from the School of Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science. The award recognises the role of an academic from each
faculty for their outstanding and diverse contribution to the quality of
student learning, and Brankovic was selected as a Highly
Commended Recipient among the faculty winners.

Her research in computation theory and
mathematics contributes to a number of different fields but the realm of data
security and privacy is one that is increasingly affecting Western society and
engenders more and more attention.

With a Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical)
from her native Yugoslavia and a PhD from the University of Newcastle,
Professor Brankovic has cemented her position in the Faculty with significant
research grants and numerous conference invitations, book chapters and journal articles.
In addition to her primary research interests in graph theory, graph algorithms
and data security, she has also contributed to research being undertaken by the
Faculty's Centre for Interdisciplinary Built Environment Research which focuses
on the Building Information Modelling environment that facilitates
collaboration and information sharing but also introduces new threats to the
security of the data it harbours.

A 2012 study into measuring attitudes
towards privacy, medical research and consent by Professor Brankovic and her PhD
student and colleagues found that while individuals greatly supported medical
research, they also had concerns about the privacy of health information, and
believed they should be asked for permission before their health information is
used for any purpose other than medical treatment. However, the study also
revealed that many people are not aware that simply removing their names and
other direct identifiers from medical records does not guarantee their health
information is protected.

As our awareness of privacy issues
increases, so does the use of knowledge discovery and data mining (KDDM)
techniques that are concerned primarily with discovering and analysing patterns
in data. An interdisciplinary technique, KDDM analysis is underpinned by
statistics, machine intelligence, pattern recognition, databases, optimisation,
information visualisation and high-performance computing. It is a bit of a
'chicken and egg' situation: as computerisation and networking expand, so does
the collection of massive amounts of data; as data grows in scope and size,
there is a greater demand for KDDM technologies to suit these 'big data'.

Professor Brankovic, together with her
colleague Professor Vladimir Estivill-Castro, was one of the pioneers of
privacy preserving data mining in Australia who warned that during the process
of data mining from data collection to knowledge discovery, data are exposed to
several parties leading to a potential breach of individual privacy. Over the
years, together with a team of her PhD students, she has, on one hand,
developed various 'noise' addition techniques that protect privacy in data
mining while preserving the patterns found in data. On the other hand, she has
designed a suite of techniques that carefully restrict access to data to
protect privacy while maximising the usability of data. These techniques are
based on solid mathematical foundations and have performance guarantees.

In the area of algorithms, Professor
Brankovic is collaborating with her German colleague Professor Henning Fernau
to develop parameterised approximation algorithms for computationally hard
problems, with the addition of privacy. This research is funded by the German
Research Foundation and over the next two years Professor Brankovic will spend
some months at the University of Trier as a Mercator Fellow.

Career Summary

Biography

Professor Ljiljana Brankovic graduated in Electrical Engineering from The University in Belgrade in 1987. She obtained her PhD in Computer Science from The University of Newcastle in 1998. Her main research interests are graph theory, graph algorithms and data security.

Administrative ExpertiseCurrent: Member of the Academic Senate OSPRO Committee, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment Industrial Experience Coordinator, Discipline of Computer Science and Software Engineering Promotions Committee, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment Past: University Promotions Committee 2010-2012 Assistant Dean (Research), Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, 2011 Assistant Dean (Postgradute), Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment 2005-2007 Head of Discipline, Discipline of Computer Science and Software Engineering 2005-2007 Promotions Committee, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment 2005-2009

CollaborationsLjiljana Brankovic has collaborated with over 30 researchers from around the world, most notably with Henning Fernau, Martin Baca, Xuemin Lin, Alex Rosa, Peter Horak, Jozef Siran and Mirka Miller.

Qualifications

PhD, University of Newcastle

Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical), University of Belgrade - Yugoslavia

Keywords

Algorithms

Data Security

Databases

Graph Theory

Theory of Computation

Languages

Serbian (Fluent)

Fields of Research

Code

Description

Percentage

080299

Computation Theory and Mathematics not elsewhere classified

45

120199

Architecture not elsewhere classified

15

120299

Building not elsewhere classified

40

Professional Experience

UON Appointment

Title

Organisation / Department

Professor

University of NewcastleSchool of Elect Engineering and Computer ScienceAustralia

Academic appointment

Dates

Title

Organisation / Department

Fellow - Institute of Combinatorics and Its Applications

Institute of Combinatorics and Its ApplicationsCanada

1/05/2015 -

Professor

University of NewcastleSchool of Elect Engineering and Computer ScienceAustralia

1/01/2007 - 1/01/2010

Chair

National Committee for Computer Security, Australian Computer SocietyAustralia

1/01/2006 - 1/12/2014

Associate Professor

University of NewcastleSchool of Elect Engineering and Computer ScienceAustralia

1/07/2000 - 1/12/2005

Senior Lecturer

University of NewcastleSchool of Elect Engineering and Computer ScienceAustralia

1/01/1998 - 1/06/2000

Lecturer

University of NewcastleSchool of Elect Engineering and Computer ScienceAustralia

1/07/1997 - 1/12/1997

Reaserch Academic

University of NewcastleSchool of Elect Engineering and Computer ScienceAustralia

Membership

Dates

Title

Organisation / Department

Member - Australian Computer Society

Australian Computer Society (ACS)Australia

1/01/2002 -

Life Member - Combinatorial Mathematics Society of Australasia

Combinatorial Mathematics Society of Australasia Australia

Invitations

Participant

Year

Title / Rationale

2007

Mathematics of PrivacyOrganisation: ICGTIS 2007
Description:
Invitation to give an invited talk at ICGTIS 2007, Bandung, West Java, Indonesia on February 10 13 2007; talk not delivered because of travel warning to Indonesia.

London KA, Singh V, Gu N, Taylor C, Brankovic L, 'Towards the development of a project decision support framework for adoption of an integrated building information model using a model server', Handbook of Research on Building Information Modeling and Construction Informatics: Concepts and Technologies, Information Science Reference, Hershey, Pennsylvania 270-301 (2010) [B1]

King T, Brankovic L, Gillard PM, 'Perspectives of Australian adults about protecting the privacy of their health information in statistical databases', International Journal of Medical Informatics, 81 279-289 (2012) [C1]

Gu N, Singh V, London KA, Brankovic L, Taylor C, 'Building information modelling: What is in there for the architects?', ANZAScA 2008: Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Architectural Science Association, Newcastle, NSW (2008) [E1]

20151 grants / $187,186

Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) university students traditionally find mathematics to be a roadblock to success in their degrees, and data worldwide suggests that this is much more prevalent amongst students from low SES backgrounds. This project has received HEPP National Priority Pool grant of $187,186 to create, evaluate and disseminate set of a research informed sequence of innovative videos designed to tackle specific areas of knowledge and skills as well as common misunderstandings, to help STEM university students from low SES backgrounds succeed in mathematics. This is a multi-disciplinary initiative, drawing on the experiences and expertise of teaching academics in Engineering, Education, Mathematics and Science who recognise the challenges faced by students from low SES backgrounds and the possibilities for improving their experiences to help them succeed through mathematics. The project leader is Dr Elena Prieto-Rodriguez and the team of researchers include Lilijana Brankovic, Rachel Buchanan, Kathryn Holmes, Peter Howley, Bill McBride, Erica Southgate and Judy-Anne Osborn.

20052 grants / $450,000

Trust has become critical with widespread of internet business. Online, interacting parties cannot rely on visual cues to establish trust, which hampers business relations. This project will investigate how trust can be established between peers. No existing trust models establish both identity and behaviour trust of a peer. It is unclear whether existing trust models and protocols are compatible. This study presents a definition of a trust relationship and defines the possible types of trust relationships between peers in P2P communication.

News

An opportunitiy exists for a PhD candidate to work on a project investigating graph labellings, in particular Graceful Labellings, and various extremal graph problems under the supervision of Associate Professor Ljiljana Brankovic.